The Weird Windsors - uncensored: Explosive notebooks of an official royal biographer invited into exiled Duke's gilded cage that are confessional, controversial - and so vivid it's as if you're there James Pope-Hennessy interviewed many members of the Royal Family In 1957 he spent time with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor near Paris He said the Duke was actually a lot less small than he had been led to believe Of the Duchess he said that she was a stupid woman with a 'petty brain' Here, in this extract from his newly-published private jottings, is an extraordinarily detailed account of the few days he spent in 1957 with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor at the converted mill house they had just bought near Paris. It was 21 years since the Duke — Queen Mary’s eldest son — had, as Edward VIII, abdicated the throne in order to marry Wallis Simpson, a divorced American socialite.I should therefore be tempted to classify her simply as An American Woman par excellence, were it not for the suspicion that the Duchess is not a woman at all. She is one of the very oddest women I have ever seen.He seized one of the two 1936 files and showed me various letters — until we reached one from Queen Mary, begging him not to broadcast (his abdication speech).‘Surely you might spare yourself this strain and emotion,’ he read out. A look of real disgust crossed over his face.‘She even tried that! Well, I ask you...if I hadn’t done that...’We began to talk about the abdication. ‘People can say what they like for it or against it, I don’t care; but one thing is certain: I acted in good faith. And I was treated bloody shabbily.’I said: ‘I think one of Queen Mary’s chief difficulties in understanding your dilemma was the fact that she had never been in love herself.’‘No, I don’t think she had,’ he said. ‘You’re right. My mother was a cold woman, a cold woman. And I, you see, I suppose I had never really been in love before. No, I hadn’t. I thought I had, but I hadn’t ever been in love.’Before we went back to the drawing room, he said with tired charm: ‘Well, I did my best, you know. I tried to bring the monarchy into touch.’The evening passed in gossip and talk. After dinner, I was in a corner with the Duchess and we discussed Them and England, and she looked so very fierce when saying how badly they had been treated and kept referring back to the Queen Mother.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6559075/The-Weird-Windsors-uncensored-Explosive-notebooks-official-royal-biographer.html

REVEALED: The full scope of Edward VIII's racism and hatred of 'filthy, nauseating' Australian Aborigines is detailed in letters he wrote to his mistress almost a century ago

Letters written by king-to-be while on tour have been recorded for first time In one letter, then-Prince of Wales complained about 'revolting black savages' He also referred to Aboriginal Australians as 'monkeys' and 'revolting' creatures 'I just loathe any form of native stunt,' the 25-year-old wrote to his mistress

How Queen Mother put Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson in Exile: Senior royal called American divorcee a 'naughty lady' as she ensured the Royal Family shunned their wedding

Secret letters and diaries reveal how she implied Simpson was a 'naughty lady' Queen Mother also wanted to 'get rid of her husband's ghosts' after he became King following 1936 abdication of Edward Wanted to ensure that 'no one' attended Edward's wedding - fewer than 20 went